Help me spend less time in the kitchen

[craziedaisy]

Hi. I have 2 children aged 2 and 4 years. It is really important to me that I am givng my children a good balanced diet and I am very lucky that they eat most things apart from white fish due to possible allergy. But I am spending far too long in the kitchen each day and not enough time playing and getting other jobs done. On average I seem to spend several hours a day in total by preparing and then later cooking and clearing up. Can anyone give me their meal planners and tips on how to get their five a day in a quick any easy meals. For example today while 2 year old slept, I put a chicken in oven and peeled lots of veg for cooking later. Then when chicken cooked I carved and cooled for later. Then at tea time I spend ages cooking and I still have washing up to do now!!

Many thanks

I love my quick and easy meals that you cn hide loads of veg in and only take 10 mins to prepare, less than an hour in the oven.

Chicken and broccoli bake. (pretty much throw anything in, amounts doesn't really matter either)

2 cans cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup (we prefer mroom)
head of broccoli (boiled till just tender)
4 tbsp double cream (not essential)
2 tsp hot curry powder/paprika
3 chicken breasts
tin or 2 chickpeas
few handfuls frozen peas
a little grated cheese (not essential)
any left over veg!

mix cream, currypowder/paprika and soup together in jug.
Put all solid ingredients in casserold dish.
Pour soup over top.
Sprinkle with cheese if using.

Cook for about 50 mins at 190degrees.

Serve with rice or on its own.

Less healthy but still tasty
Hashbrown casserole

1 bag (approx 1kg) frozen hashbrowns
2 tins cream of chicken/cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp onion powder
grated cheese
1/2 cup melted butter
3 cups cornflakes

mix soup, pepper, onion powder, milk in jug.
lay half hasbrowns in casserole dish
cover with half soup mix
lay rest of the hasbrowns on top, cover with rest of soup.
sprinkle on grated cheese if using
mix cornflakes with melted butter, crushing slightly, sprinkle on top

cook for 50 mins at 175degrees.

HTH

Hi, I'm now embarrassed after the last post, as I'm from the lazy part of the kitchen.

Just going to say i recently bought brevill cafe sandwich maker. It takes all types of bread - fantastic for quick lunches and I can either put tomatoes in the sandwich or I cut up tomatoes/Cumcumber on the side, then offer fruit after.

I always seem to enter a time warp when I'm in the kitchen. I once timed myself and found it took me an hour just to make a salad nicoise for 2!

I'd get into doing batch cooking so that at the weekend you spend time making a lasagne (with added veg), shepard's pie, fish pie (salmon/prawns instead of white fish, sausage casserole, lots of pasta sauces (tomato/cheese sauce/etc) etc.

And for lunch do lots of hearty veg soups - can basically get 5 a day and good fibre in one good bowlful of random veg with pulses. Freeze it in smaller portions and just take some out overnight to defrost. Sarnie with it.

My DC also love this recipe for homemade pesto chicken nuggets (I also have my fair share of McCain's smiley faces, Turkey Dinosaurs and fish fingers - sometimes life really is too short!). I coat in 50/50 grated parmesan/breadcrumbs rather than just breadcrumbs. I cook a larger batch and then freeze the individual bites on a tray - once frozen then shove in a bag and cook from frozen as needed. Bit of mash and veg - very balanced!

I think you also have to think about balance over a few days/a week rather than every day.

I have the same sandwich toaster iget - my DC love them with Heinz tomato soup! yum!

Make double and freeze the extra portions - you only spend one night out of 2 cooking. By doing this a few times you can build up a variety of meals in the freezer.

The other thing I do is bulk make things like mashed potato or potato gratin or other side dishes and freeze. Make a meal in the slow cooker (with plenty of veg in) and then nuke the mash from the freezer which saves effort.

Frozen veg are as good, sometimes better than fresh veg and quicker to cook as they don't need any preping. My kids have always liked the mixes of diced carrot/peas/sweetcorn/green beans or similar (most places doing something along those lines).

Slow cooker is more a reorganisation of time than actually time saving but I find it useful as I can prep stuff while kids are asleep/at school or napping.

Economy gastronomy used the ideas of 'tumble down recipes' - so make a big pot of mince. 1 day have it as spag bol, next day add some spices and kidney beans and serve with rice or tortillas as chilli con carne, you can do shepherd/cottage pie with it. If you don't fancy mince that many times in a row freeze in portions and serve later.

I do a big pulled pork and freeze. Nuke in microwave and serve with wraps, grated cheese, salad stuff or roasted veg, maybe some spicy rice and beans. Quick to prepare and lay out. Instead of pulled pork you can do chicken or mince or pretty much anything you fancy.

Baked potatoes with cheese/beans or tuna and salad or chilli or curry - various toppings all well balanced meal.

SOmething that goes down well with mine (and I love doing as a quick no effort dinner) - pork chops (marinated in balsamic vinegar and rosemary/black pepper) served with crusty bread and salad.

Decent sausages with roasted mushrooms/peppers/onions (chopped up and chucked in tray with sausages) served with potatoes or bread.

Omelettes with leftover veg served with baked beans or salad.

Homemade pizzas but made with tortillas or french bread as a base. Serve with veg sticks

Homemade soup followed by a fruit based pudding (e.g. fruit crumble).

I think you need a slow-cooker.

bung it all in slow-cooker in morning, leave it on low throughout day. Or bung it in at lunchtime and cook on high for a few hours. You leave it unattended pretty much as they don't need stirring/fussing.

Loads of slow-cooker recipes on here if you search, I have pinched loads of them and they have all turned out delicious!

If you are not warm to that idea then consider more 'one-pot cooking' or tray-bake style dishes. At the very least it will minimise your washing up!

I make quite a few quick dishes usually using pasta.

Cook pasta according to instructions. While pasta is cooking, gently fry some chopped cooked ham. Add some cream and some chicken stock cubes or liquid.
Add peas to the pasta to cook and then drain. Mix pasta and peas with creamy ham. Serve.

I also cook a gammon joint (usually in the 3 for £10 bit in sainsbury's) in the slow cooker with cola or apple juice.
Use it the first night to make ham, egg and chips and the second night to make the pasta or to make a chicken and ham pie.

I think with small children you either need to make dinner quickly or make it fully in advance. If you spend hours slaving over the stove and then they turn their noses up at it then you feel more resentful than if you didn't make much effort.

Remember if you give them a portion of fruit with their breakfast plus a glass of fruit juice thats 2 portions

• veg sticks for lunch and an apple (another 2 portions)

you are only left with one portion to fit into dinner.

If they snack on fruit/veg sticks as well its easy to fit in their 5 a day.

If you make a casserole there is NO NEED for browning. You can just bung everything in, bring it up to the boil on the hob, then stick it in the oven for the afternoon (beef) or an hour (chicken). This means only about 5-10 minutes prep for a proper hearty meal.

My 2 also love soup- just veg cooked (I don't bother to peel) then zizzed up. Yesterday we had chicken and vegetable- onion, carrot, celery, leek, potato boiled in some stock then zizzed with leftover roast chicken at the end.

Or try a root veg traybake- potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, onions, unpeeled garlic etc, add some chicken or pork if you want and some paprika and just wang it in the oven for an hour, done.

God, we're good, aren't we.

Lovely ideas. Thank you all so much I will experiment tomorrow!!

Can you reorganise your kitchen? It may sound odd but if everything is in a drawer or cupboard within arms reach of where you need it you'll be stunned at the difference it makes, I promise.

a couple of hours sounds typical of me really, hubby rarely helps and prep, cook and clean def adds to 2 plus hours. But really, its not as if your stood there for 2 hours, while you prepare things and cook you can multi task it with other chores.

Agree, batch cooking is brilliant, slow cooking can be done in the oven, and at this age should be eating the same as you. I'm not keen on preparing two seperate meals apart from the odd days. I've told my OH this, no way am I cooking a spicy meal for him in the week on top of doing the boys dinners.

I just do standard meals such as bolognaise, sheppards pie, chicken casserole, beef pies, fish pies. They eat it, well they have no chose!

Get a slow cooker!

Oh I had forgotten about the sandwich maker

For days when there is no time, pasta and pizza are fab. Sometimes a quiche.

I find the very best way to get mine to eat fruit and veg is to give it them, raw, just before they eat, whilst they can smell the food cooking. They are starving and wolf it down.

Get hold of a book dedicated to quick cook meals like Ainsley Harriet's 'Meals in Minutes'. Stir-fries, pasta dishes, salads etc. are naturally quick-cook and healthy. If you're going to go to the lengths of making a slow-cook dish, make double and freeze half for another day. And finally...

...get a dishwasher. :)

This week's meal-plan

• Monday. Spaghetti Bolognese (pressure-cooker batch ... remainder frozen in portions for another day)
• Tuesday. Egg Fried Rice
• Wednesday. Something batch-cooked out of the freezer.
• Thursday. Jacket spuds with Vegetable Chilli (out of freezer) and salad
• Friday. Chicken Fajitas

Sympathies, OP - I have the same problem (even though I have a dishwasher) but DS is fussy and doesn't like fish, potatoes, cheese, spices or most vegetables.

I do cook in bulk and we usually eat the same for a couple of days in a row, and freeze any extra.

I still find that by the time you've reheated the defrosted meal, cooked some carbs to go with it, peeled / chopped vegetables to accompany it, dished up the toddler's to cool, put him in the highchair wiped, with bib, eczema cream on etc, and then dished up ours, it still takes at least half an hour, often longer. And being 'helped' in all the preparations by a 2 y.o. doesn't make it any faster.

Incidentally, the 5 a day is supposed to be a minimum - IIRC nutritionists agree it should be more like 8 or 9, but 5 was chosen as a realistically possible number for most people.

The issue of kitchen organisation is a good one - I have to move the highchair to get at our food storage shelves and it's such a nuisance (unfortunately there isn't anywhere else to put it without me falling over it every 2 minutes).

buy a couple of student cookbooks - or order from library first to see if you like them. also agree with slow cooker suggestion and barbecue (gas) for summer, and cook double quantities of things one day for next (eg paprika pots, or double chicken and have roast 1 day, make something with lefyovers next day). what i'm trying to say is plan ahead and have a meal plan for week

think about whats taking the longest, eg if peeling veg stop doing it and buy frozen

I finally got myself in gear last year and made a list of the 30 most eaten meals in our house and I cook almost exclusively from these. About half are batch cooked and frozen and the rest are things like stirfrys and risottos with stuff from the freezer. I have a very very big freezer! I just got really really sick of meal planning every week and now I just grab from the freezer. One big cook every 3 months seems to work with curries, stews, lasagne, shepherds pie and I'll cook the odd thing to top up every so often. And I have a checklist of everything I need in the larder to cook the meals and do a big top up shop once a month. It's not quick to put together but it's been worth it!